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Talk:Spirit Shaman
Difficulty Class To begin with, neither Spirit Shamans nor Favored Souls have low spellcasting DC. This page is here for those people who believe that. Spirit Archon DC 41 on Mass Drown, and Storm of Vengeance. DC 40 on Bombardment. However the lack of epic penetration can hurt you, but getting it only drops the DC's to 40 which is comparable with a Red Wizard and gives you access to Entropic Husk. This class is especially useful in online modules, where the base model of a custom enemy determines if it is a spirit not it's actual type when creating a new creature or it's character levels. So if someone makes an incorporeal undead but changes it's racial type, and levels to something besides incorporeal undead it is still considered a spirit due to the base model used so Chastise Spirits, and Weaken Spirits will still effect the creature. Min/max both casting attributes. 11 primary(+8 item), and then pump the actual DC attribute. In the case of spirit shamans, this means you will have high conversation skills along with high spell save DC's. Now take that comparable spellcaster and add 50% concealment 4-5 times per day, contingent heal, recall spirit, along with chastise spirits and weaken spirits and you've got the perfect companion/character for MotB, or any online server using alot of spirits. Weaken Spirits can make the most badass boss a kitty cat if it's a spirit since that ability strips all DR, SR, and displacement, etc effects from a spirit for the entire party while chastise spirits will inflict 60-80+ damage each round you use it. So if you were to do 29 Spirit Shaman, 1 Cleric you could easily have high dc's along with the bonus feats(weapon focus, luck of heroes, etc) and armor proficiencies of the cleric(medium armor) which saves another feat as spirit shamans do not get medium armor for free. So with those feats, you could easily push 57-60 ac in most online modules and 60+ in motb with the use of tortoise shell and a +8 dex belt for the freedom of movement and full max dex bonus using mithral full plate. All in all the build is very durable, with high DC's. NOTE: All spellcasting classes gain +1 DC at every third caster level after 20 (i.e. 23, 26, 29, etc.). This includes caster levels from prestige classes. Mictlantecuhtli 15:25, March 14, 2010 (UTC) :Now try having a high DC when you only get 20 levels, and +3 gear. After level 20, spirit shamans are great, pre level 20, not so much. ::They'd still have the same DC as a regular caster even at lvl 20, they'd just be weaker in physical stats to make up for having to split their attributes to cover wisdom, and charisma. Only in Storm of Zehir would playing a spirit shaman be hard due to a general lack of good equipment. Mictlantecuhtli 11:04, March 29, 2010 (UTC) ::They have lower DC than single-attribute casters. You can argue that you can make a spirit shaman with good DC, and you can but what's stopping an arcane caster from doing the same thing, except channeling that +8 from items to wisdom to some other useful attribute like con or dex? It basically boils down to a spirit shaman/favored soul with maxed DC versus a single attribute caster with maxed DC with very good dex/con. You really think people would prefer the former? Picking an item dependent build is also not something people want to do unless we're talking really gamebreaking returns, and the Druid spell list just doesn't make that cut. Finally all it takes to effectively cripple that build is a -wisdom effect. The main selling point of the spirit shaman is the synergy the class has with metamagic feats. The one thing the class has is the ability to spam spells - offensive, defensive and support spells - something a mere sorcerer or druid can never do. It's not like the class can't fall back to buffing all his party members with Spell Resistance/Freedom of Movement/Tortoise Shell/Energy Immunity/Regenerate/Vigor when fighting opponents with insane saves, then spamming no-save/persistent effect spells. Although this relegates the class to a middleman role instead of more popular roles like nuker/damager/etc., it's not like we have a shortage of builds or classes more suited to the latter. And it's not like NWN2 is a game where you're forced to take only 3 party members, so there's plenty of room for "middleman" classes. : Except it really doesn't synergize with metamagic. Contrast to the arcane casters, which have a few very situational spells like manltes, breaches, assay resistance, and emergency stoneskins along with an array of differenting elemental/no save nukes. A Wizard, who is behind the Sorcerer in spell slots, falls even further behind needing to permanently keep slots filled with situational spells which may never be used, and unless you metagame your damage spells per encounter, your slots are not going to be filled with the best ones for an encounter so you're going to have to make due spamming inferior ones. A Sorcerer is the true king of metamagic in that he can use every single spell slot of three different spell levels on the normal, empowered, and maximized version of the best spell for the encounter, keeping nothing back for a situational spell that does not apply. A Spirit Shaman/Druid, on the other hand, has long-duration prebuffs, not situational spells. A druid is not wasting a slot on an extended Bull's Strength they may never cast, they're always going to cast it. : A caster Druid boosting Wisdom will also eventually catch up to a caster SS boosting CHA in spell slots, while being +2 DC ahead due to Owl's Insight -- a ridiculous 1 hour/level buff that gives you 1/2 your caster level to Wisdom. Neither gets much out of empowered/maximized since the offensive spell selection is so limited and without access to an equivalent to Arcane Scholar of Candlekeep for Improved Empowered/Maximized your metamagiced spells use a spell slot so far higher that they have a better spell in them. So the caster Druid isn't really behind the SS in terms of metamagic ability or slot efficiency, and they're only a bit behind in slots from the mid teens into the mid 20's. In exchange they get medium armor proficiency for free (mithral full-plate) and what is probably the 4th best feat in the game: Dinosaur companion. The Dino is just insane, having great AC, HP, and he does a reasonable amount of damage. A Dino beefs up your front line to an insane degree. Where a SS may have to stop dealing damage to heal the tank who's being overwhelmed, causing him to take even more damage since enemies are left up, leaving the SS relegated to nothing but trying to keep the tank alive, the druid can sit back and just cast away because his dino is splitting the enemies' attention. : The SS's only real benefit is that if he wants to just be a buff bot he can skimp on his casting attributes, and without needing class levels for an animal companion he can multiclass. Spirit Shaman/Warpriest might be a nice addition to Fighter/Frenzied Berserker levels if your party has no druid buffs. 02:51, August 22, 2019 (UTC) :Immunity to attribute/level drain is all it takes to make debuffs useless. Mictlantecuhtli 03:12, August 23, 2010 (UTC) Class features This class definitely needs more love. No special class feats (like Divine Might, Mass Song of Heroism or Dinosaur Companion) and lacking a good prestige class - Stormlord is nice but is somewhat lacking (shamans already have electricity immunity via Energy Immunity and Extended Storm Avatars by themselves, +1,+2,+3 items at the level you get the feat are no longer rare, and improving weapon damage for a character that will be casting spells most of the time? Not as nifty, especially since shamans already have Flame Weapon and Storm Avatar for that). Warpriest is actually a more viable prestige class, except for the fact that Warpiest/Shaman sounds... wrong. (in the context of what a spirit shaman is) Wizards and Sorcerers have good prestige classes and have spell lists designed with a "casting first, everything else later" philosophy in mind. Clerics get good feats and have a spell list designed with an "avatar of god" character in mind. And because of how the cleric spell list is designed, Favored Souls really don't have much to complain about. As for the Spirit Shaman... his spell list was designed with a spontaneous summoning, shapeshifting, animal companion-lugging character in mind (which every druid is, even the pure caster ones). Bad deal. And the clincher is that when it all comes down to it, it's not as much a matter of a mismatched spell list... The classes in NWN2 are supposed to be as different as apples and oranges, unfortunately the way the Spirit Shaman currently is he's basically just a copy of the Druid... who can spam spells that don't exactly work as well anyway. Thing is, the Druid may cast less but he already has enough castings to buff everyone and once he''gets his spear and animal companion, you can expect a whole lot more butt-kicking than the Spirit Shaman's low-DC spell spammage. Sadly, this is true. Things would probably be different if the Druid class couldn't get its spellcasting act together but it just... can. With epic feat gravy on the side. How about an epic feat that allows the shaman to bargain/fight/capture/draw on spirits for power? Would be fun if there was a Shaman feat that allowed you to summon Okku or that increases your stats with a successful Chastise Spirits or something. Tyrtallows 18:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC) :Summoners, and high DC druids are different builds entirely. Epic Summoner, Champion of Istishia I don't use wild shape at all in either one and the champion build doesn't use it's pet. There are severe PW bugs with even Okku's portrait, etc being used I can only imagine the hell someone would go through using the actual bear in the world. Mictlantecuhtli 16:40, 21 August 2009 (UTC) ::Last I checked the Spirit-Shaman-arcane-prestige-class-theurge bug was still working. If you have Spirit Shaman levels and you take a PrC that advances arcane spell casting, you gain levels in both the base arcane class and Spirit Shaman. So you could make a Spirit Shaman 5/Sorcerer 5/ASoC 10/EK 10 with level 28 Spirit Shaman and Sorcerer spell casting. The bug used to apply to Favored Souls as well, but it was fixed (along with the SS bug, though it resurfaced the subsequent patch). It's probably the worst gameplay bug left in the game, but it's one way to make the Spirit Shaman useful. I think the big problem with the class is the double attribute spell casting dependency coupled with point buy for attributes and a DC heavy spell list (no AB buffs like the cleric/FS, or no saves like the wizard/sorcerer), you don't even get to use Owl's Insight to raise your DCs. Mithdradates 04:08, 22 August 2009 (UTC) ::It's a bit worse than that, actually. There are many ways to safely avoid the DC problem, but while these methods work well for some classes (like Warlocks and Wizards, specifically characters like Safiya who have bad spell DC's but could rely on no-save/caster-level dependent spells and good crafting potential to offset this) - these methods do not work for the Spirit Shaman. ::Breaking down the Shaman's strengths: :::*First off Druid buffs have good offensive potential and the Spirit Shaman ''should benefit from these - unfortunately a high wisdom Druid with metamagic feats or even Craft Wand can take care of all of a party's Druidic buffing needs already. Serious setback one. :::*Druids have some very nice no-save spells, and these should work very well for the Spirit Shaman - unfortunately he doesn't have the +caster level bonuses wizards benefit from (via Assay Resistance or in the case of Safiya, Red Wizard levels) nor any particular skills like Use Magic Device that warlocks can fall back to. Serious setback two. :::*Shamans should make great summoners. The fact that Greater Magic Fang and Nature's Avatar now work for any allied animal (like summoned ones) should make this so, and he can spam elemental summoning spells too - but the highest level summoned animal is a Dire Bear (leaving much to be desired) and as for the elementals... well let's just hope you don't have to use Chastise Spirits or Weaken Spirits while you have them around. (Hardcore+) :::*Druids are monsters in melee/ranged combat. Spirit Shamans... Serious setback four. :::*The double DC feature is just icing on this conglomeration of "little" things that together leave the class with much to be desired. Double DC means less stats for physical abilities, so advising shamans to take Stormlord levels is questionable. Zen Archery is nice but really, to have to take 4 feats total (Toughness, Great Fortitude, Weapon Focus, Zen Archery) for a PrC class that offers practically nothing new to the shaman except the weapon enchantment buffs? And even if you ignore all that, shamans should already have their hands full casting during combat. In any case, the shaman's melee/ranged combat potential isn't exactly what you should be focusing on anyway (see previous setback), and there's always the Shapechange spell. Throwing weapons are also bugged and don't replace themselves when used up, unlike arrows or bolts. When you run out of those you will stand blank for 1 round and then you will have to cast your stormlord enchant weapon again for another round (swapping weapons and enchanting extra throwing weapons stacks helps, but usually the enchantments don't last long enough and you'll have to recast them in the middle of the battle). An alternative build would be to abandon charisma altogether in favor of increasing other stats and focusing on spells without a DC, but we already have the Favored Soul for this. Serious setback five. :::*The Doomguide PrC (along with the humble ranger class) are already powerful ghostbusters. The shaman can't compete with them simply because the class lacks additional content. Chastise Spirits/Weaken Spirits may be powerful, but not when you'll end up killing your allied spirits as a result. Most other classes also get access to some great epic feats at higher levels. ::Individually or even in two's or three's these things are manageable. Altogether, the result is that the class isn't working as it was supposed to. It's displaced by the druid (for those after druidic magic in particular) or the Doomguide/Ranger (for those who just want a ghostbuster). It's also lacking in additional content. (Gannayev is the sole exception, his ECL is downplayed, his world works towards his benefit and he gets bonus companion feats) ::I'm just crossing my fingers here since one or two good, epic shaman-specific feats can quite possibly fix all of this. ::As for some of the "specialized" Druid builds... suffice to say, I don't believe in one-person-one-party-NWN2. I play these games for the character party building and strategies thing. The rest of the druid "specialized" builds are also too unique to be compared to the shaman since these should fit in entirely different party niches altogether. ::Tyrtallows 06:48, 23 August 2009 (UTC) ::*Saying that Druids can handle Druid Buffs already is not a serious setback for Spirit Shamans. It isn't a setback at all. Spirit Shamans can also handle Druid Buffs. ::*Saying Druids have very nice no-save spells which "should" work for Spirit Shamans and then implying that they don't is nonsensical. Both Druids and Spirit Shamans can use the same no-save spells. ::*Saying that Assay Resistance is a big advantage for arcane casters is actually a distortion. It is really compensation for arcane casters because of the 40 arcane spells that lose their primary function completely if the save succeeds. Without it Druids and Spirit Shamans would have a significant advantage. :::Having somewhat lower saves isn't nearly as big of an issue when you have far fewer spells that fail completely when a save is made. ::*The ability to cast spells at will is a big advantage for a Spirit Shaman over a Druid. The double attribute pushes the Spirit Shaman towards either damage caster or fighter/buffer (Gann) but not both. It's the trade off to prevent it from dominating the Druid class.Mudeye (talk) 20:13, November 13, 2013 (UTC) :::Another setback is re-opening a 4-year old class discussion. GFallen (talk) 00:13, November 15, 2013 (UTC) ::It's a shame Spirit Shamans don't get any spirit-buffing abilities, which you'd think would be right up their street. Then summoning elementals and empowering them would really work (especially if Chastise & Weaken got changed to affect enemies only). It seems silly that the worst thing s Spirit Shaman can do is summon a spirit ally. Widow maker 23:59, February 14, 2010 (UTC) Move Shouldn't this discussion be moved to the spirit shaman talk page.... Mithdradates 10:00, August 23, 2010 (UTC) :Done. GFallen (talk) 17:31, December 13, 2012 (UTC) Wisdom for Learning Spells In the description of the class it states that the character must have a wisdom score of 10+spell level to learn a spell. However, under the leveling section it says that spells are learned based on the spell progression schedule and are not dependent on wisdom score. Can anyone verify which it is? Mudeye 22:43, February 15, 2012 (UTC) :WIS for slots/access. CHA for DC. What is meant is that your WIS doesn't affect the amount of spells known - but it does affect the spells/day. GFallen (talk) 17:29, December 13, 2012 (UTC) So summing that all up for anyone interested in playing/editing the class Spirit Shaman cons: -lower DC relative to other spellcasting classes unless you min/max caster stats, lacks access to Assay Resistance -NwN2 druid spell selection leaves a lot to be desired, possibly because NwN2 druids already get a ton of extra goodies feat-wise. Very few no-save or no-SR spells, too many reflex save damage spells, too many druid-only spells -potentially broken on hardcore difficulty and higher because of friendly fire from spirit shaman skills -in low magic worlds where +wisdom/charisma items are much rarer, you have to make stat/feat sacrifices to improve your spellcasting focus (nuking, support, etc) Spirit Shaman pros: -very effective on high magic worlds, in a large part because you can leave Wis at 11+ for example -metamagic goodness -extremely effective against spirit-type enemies Sounds about right?